Inside My Travels- blog edition

At Mark Twain’s house/museum in Connecticut we learned a valuable lesson in vacation planning: when going on a tour buy tickets in advance, or at the very least look up the tour times. We arrived at the ticketing kiosk, just as a tour was heading out. We had to wait half an hour. You can only spend so much time in the gift shop, and a LEGO Mark Twain is only so much fun (because you are not allowed to take him apart and build other cool stuff).

We resorted to an impromptu quick lunch in the parking lot. We had wings left over from the night before. You might think cold wings sound gross. But these were no ordinary chicken wings. They were buffalo wings. From Buffalo, NY. From the Anchor Bar & Grill- those kind of buffalo wings. It was good eating in the open hatchback of the Jeep. Some people drove by and started to laugh at us- only then did it dawn on me that we were tailgating.

What happens when Ben & Jerry’s releases an ice cream flavour that for one reason or another (atrocious taste or lackluster name) flops? It goes to the graveyard out back behind the factory where it is marked with an adorable grave (I never thought I would say such a thing). One year while in Vermont we finished our factory tour with a somber walk through the graveyard, mourning the flavours passed.

Apparently death in the ice cream world is not quite the same. While walking along the Broadwalk at Hollywood Beach in Florida- yes, Broadwalk, that is not a typo- we passed by a Ben & Jerry’s that featured a sign saying a flavour had been reinconeated and raised from it’s grave! I was eating a chocolate soft serve ice cream cone at the time thus we kept walking. Still, in the back of my mind I could not let it go, I was so curious: what flavour had been brought back? I had to know!

As we walked back to the car, a good half hour after my first ice cream I caved. I found myself at the counter ordering a White Russian… ice cream that is. Thank God it was a delicious flavour and not some monstrosity. My curiosity can only handle so much. Why a coffee & liqueur flavour got killed off in the first place, I will never know, it was simply divine. Even if it got me a step closer to diabetes.

There is a reason why I don’t drive on our vacations. In the past it was that I did not have my full license. When we went to New Mexico in Oct. 2013, however, I had no excuse. I had my full license. Heck, I wanted to drive, I offered to drive. And then we learned why I do not drive…

I am way too easily distracted. Nowhere was this more clear than when I asked (begged) to drive along the easier* stretch of Route 66. I drove for about a total of maybe 30 seconds before I saw a giant boulder with a Route 66 logo on it. And right past that on the road there was a Route 66 sign stenciled. I pulled over on the shoulder and ran back. It’s ok, there were no cars, it was fine for me to crouch down in the middle of the road.

One of the downsides to travel is that there are some places with restricted access, you are only allowed in with a tour group. Such was the case at Hearst Castle in California. Tours don't necessarily suck, it is the people on the tour. Every once in a while we get stuck with what seems like the worst group in the world. Case in point, our fellow tourists at Hearst Castle.

Some of the true gems that they, in all seriousness, asked our poor (and unbelievably patient) tour guide: